Crescent Moon
by Akimi Kono
Summary: Don't mind me if the following summary is wrong later on.  Grace Yutani is sent to Michael from Weyland Industries in America where she's being used for good. She's sent aboard the Sulaco to check out LV-426, and things start to go downhill from there...
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Written 10/7/10. Typed and uploaded 10/9/10

My name is Grace. I was built as an android by Yoshio Yutani. I was designed in more of a Western style. Instead of being a traditional robot of Japan, I was programmed knowing English and THEN Japanese, because after the first few years of being a working android, I was shipped overseas to America. I was received by an American company called Weyland. The name of the man who accepted the shipment, a.k.a. me, was Michael. He provided a place for me to stay and worked on everything in me that was mechanical.

Instead of the quiet, hardworking Asians that concentrated on one small thing at a time, taking months to wire a simple "tendon" in my finger, he was slightly messy, a bit unorganized and focused on my overall self instead of a single section. He worked on my emotional inhibitors as well. Before, I was unresponsive; a general robot, content with no contact with anyone other than my supervisors. He changed it so that I had my own personal feelings, my own responses to actions around me. He even gave me thoughts, which is a hard thing to imagine. An android capable of its own thoughts. It was unheard of in the East! Yet here it was in one of the most mechanically undeveloped countries of the world.

This man was very smart, and as I grew to know him, he became a genius in my eyes. He did things the Japanese scientists wouldn't even dream of doing, things they would never try or think of - such as socializing me with others.

Mr. Michael would take me down to the parks on the days he wasn't busy working on other androids, or sometimes bring me along to "conventions" where other scientists and architects gathered. There were workshops where bits and pieces of imperfect robots laid around while the minds behind them studied blueprints, scratching their heads in wonder at how perfectly I worked and functioned. This wondrous Japanese robot, straight from the hardest working minds in all of the Asian countries, standing before them! He would show me proudly to the other people, but didn't display me in such a way that was sneering or emphasized wealth. He treated me with such a kindness I'd never know, had I stayed in my home country.

I suppose that I would have been even fonder of the brilliant man than I already was, if I hadn't met the first android he had created.

Bishop.


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Written 10/7/10, 10/9/10. Typed and uploaded 10/12/10

Disclaimer: ALIENS belongs to James Cameron and the characters belong to, I suppose Ridley Scott (?)... GRACE YUTANI is my character!

At first, I was too stiff to talk to Bishop, as I had just arrived from Tokyo. I was not at all used to this American android whom was so curious and open to learning through experience instead of being programmed. Mr. Michael acted as if it were normal, like every robot did it, but I had never heard of such a thing. I was closed to the idea and didn't associate with Bishop, for I had a bit of distaste for him. I tried to ignore him in all situations, especially when around Michael. I suppose I was a bit rude, acted a bit snooty, but it was all in the effort of keeping myself the prim android I had been built to be - not like some Americanized machine. Once I even acted in such a way that let Bishop know I was avoiding him on purpose, and I didn't mind at first that he knew.

He had come up to me to ask a question, that of which I have never learned because I blocked it out, and I walked right past him, acting in complete to ignore him. In fact, it was like he wasn't there. He, being good-natured and quick to catch on, did not follow me, as I thought he would, but instead left in another direction. He knew my true feelings for him then and the amazing thing was that he didn't have to be programmed about it.

About a month after Mr. Michael tweaked my reaction, emotion and personality sectors I became almost completely different. It was like he had created an entirely new android with the design of me. I was shy around everyone, which had never happened before, and it took immense coaxing to have me out of my room.

I was also very, very quiet around Bishop. It wasn't because I was expressing my now-forgotten dislike of him, but because I was unable to speak, it seemed. It was as if every time he was around I lost the ability to form the simplest of words; I couldn't even mutter a sound. It was the strangest thing, and I had no explanation for it. After the first few times it happened, most of which caused very serious miscommunications between android to android, I asked Michael about it. He smiled a little bit, as if he had accomplished something minor.

"It means you like him."

I was slightly confused. "What do you mean?"

He put his tools down and, exhaling sharply, placed his hands on the metal table.

"You feel different, right?"

"Yes."

"As if you can't talk."

"Speak - or move."

"Or move. Right?"

"Yes."

"And you've never felt this way before ... right?"

"Yes - but I suspect it is because of the many alterations you've made over the past months. It could be that I have not adjusted well to being less of what I am used to."

"Is that a yes?"

"... yes."

"Then .. you .. like .. him."

" ... I don't understand."

Michael shook his head and sighed. "The reason you act like you do when Bishop is around is because your emotions are reacting the way they are supposed to. The way I designed them to - that's what I was doing all those months."

I thought this over for a moment. "You mean like him ... like a person?"

"Yes."

"Is that good?"

"I don't know. Is it?"

"Why are you asking me?"

He shrugged. I paused for a moment and filtered his question through my mind until I found an answer I was pleased with.

"Well, is it good?"

I blinked and managed a small half smile, a twitch of my lip. "Yes."

It was very good.


End file.
